Homeostatic and developmental control of cell size and shape in an insect epithelium, the epidermis ofManduca sexta

Abstract

In contrast to previously described transformations of insect epidermal cells, morphological changes in the larval epidermis of Manduca sexta involve large changes in cell volume: a threefold increase at the beginning and a twofold decrease at the end of the last feeding phase. The volume changes are determined, in part, or entirely, by changes in cell height (cell elongation and cell shortening). Initial cell elongation occurs in a region-specific manner, whereas subsequent cell shortening affects all of the epidermis equally. As shown by ligation experiments and hormone treatments in tissue culture, larval changes in cell height, unlike cell elongation and differentiation in prepupae, are not regulated by developmental hormones (juvenile hormones, ecdysteroids). Instead, the maintenance of a normal columnar epithelium in fifth instars depends on continuous growth. Lack of food, especially protein, results in reversible cell shortening at any time during the feeding phase. Intake of water does not mitigate this cellular response; cell shortening is also insensitive to ouabain but inhibited by cold treatments. We propose that during larval growth epidermal cell height is under specific homeostatic control, independent of mechanisms regulating cell width, ploidy levels, or mitotic activity.